YouSaid · the spoken record

Tom Barkin

lines on the record: 60
first: 2025-05-30
most recent: 2025-05-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“You describe me as a very modest person. I'm not sure that's true, but I'll just say that I was so impressed with the grounding and the experience of the people who make monetary policy that it wouldn't have occurred to me that I should go stick my hand up and do that. And even when you walk into the room at the FOMC, you've got 19 people there. They're very impressed. Probably two-thirds are academic economists They've spent their entire career working and studying in that. And of course, I had taken four years of economics, you know, 40 years, well, I guess 35 years earlier. And so I think it would have been pretty arrogant to imagine that that would place that was natural for me. Now, when I got into the process and started thinking about it, I was able to articulate a model for how I thought I could add value to the room. And I think”
2025-05-30 · Masters in Business · Richmond Federal Reserve President and CEO Tom Barkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, let me take a step back. I've really been impressed with the Atlanta Fed from 09 to 14 and the Federal Reserve in general, navigating through the financial crisis, all the innovations that happened in the early 2010s. It reawakened an interest in economics that I'd had since being an undergrad. But I never thought that that's a job I would do. It just didn't occur to me until the combination of the headhunter and Dennis encouraged me to do it. And then I interviewed and was offered the job.”
2025-05-30 · Masters in Business · Richmond Federal Reserve President and CEO Tom Barkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Dennis at some point invited me to join his board. So from 09 to 14, I was on the board and then eventually the chair of the board of the Atlanta Fed. And I stepped down term limited. And three years later, I was in the process of leaving McKinsey. McKinsey has a mandatory retirement age. I'm very young in my own mind, but not that young at McKinsey. And I had signed the papers and agreed to retire. And I got a call from a headhunter suggesting that I interview for the Richmond job. And of course, I called Dennis and asked if he thought this made sense. And he encouraged me to do it. And so for me, it just seemed like a great opportunity to.”
2025-05-30 · Masters in Business · Richmond Federal Reserve President and CEO Tom Barkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, I was very involved civically in Atlanta and lots of different organizations. And at some point I met the president, my equivalent in Atlanta, who then was Dennis Lockhart, who's a great guy.”
2025-05-30 · Masters in Business · Richmond Federal Reserve President and CEO Tom Barkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Spent three years trying to help institutionalize some risk processes at McKinsey, including a lot of the stuff that has been done to defend against cyber. And in whatever role, and there are others that I'm not going to bore you with, you know, the opportunity to try to take a partnership and influence it to become better is a challenge and also a lot of fun.”
2025-05-30 · Masters in Business · Richmond Federal Reserve President and CEO Tom Barkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, starting in'99, I started leading the Atlanta office, which eventually became the Southern offices of McKinsey. So from Texas through Virginia, it was sort of our territory. And we had, I don't remember the number, 60, 70, 80 partners plus another several hundred associates. And we were serving clients in that geography. So I'll point to that as a role that I really enjoyed and one where I got to spend so much time with so many business people about what was happening in their business and opportunities for McKinsey to help. We worked our way through 9-11. That was a very difficult time for our business. And I think coming out of it, the folks at McKinsey thought, you know, I knew how to manage a bottom line and our office got through quite nicely. And when a new managing partner was named around the financial crisis, they asked me to be the CFO to help navigate McKinsey through that, which I'm very, you know, pleased with how well we navigated through that. I did that for six years and then.”
2025-05-30 · Masters in Business · Richmond Federal Reserve President and CEO Tom Barkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and I was lucky lucky to go there. I joined an office that had about 25 people in Atlanta. Felt like an entrepreneurial opportunity to build something. Made a lot of friends there, enjoyed the work, really enjoyed my clients and the opportunity to help a bunch of great leaders improve the performance of their organizations, fell in love with McKinsey people, smart, talented, idealistic, and the combination just worked great for me.”
2025-05-30 · Masters in Business · Richmond Federal Reserve President and CEO Tom Barkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is a combined program. You take a year at law school, a year at business school, and two years combined. I didn't realize there was a program where you could also get a CPA. Maybe that would have been a third degree just for extra credit.”
2025-05-30 · Masters in Business · Richmond Federal Reserve President and CEO Tom Barkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I applied to law school and got in. But a bunch of my roommates were applying to business school and it felt to me like that was a neat way to get a master's in something related to economics that I was interested in. And so I applied also to business school and got into that and then started that program. Once into law school and business school, I was able to compare two sets of professions, one the law and the second being going into business. And it just felt like the second was much more vibrant, much more interesting. learned a lot more and so i made that transition but i wouldn't have made that transition if i hadn't been an economics major i wouldn't have made that transition if i hadn't applied to business school i just wouldn't have the confidence to do it”
2025-05-30 · Masters in Business · Richmond Federal Reserve President and CEO Tom Barkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It wasn't that. I grew up in Tampa, went to a public school there, applied to a few southern schools and Harvard because it had a good name. And I thought it was sort of a neat idea. And then I got in, which was kind of a surprise. And when I went there, I was going to be a lawyer. And I was going to major in mathematics. And I took my freshman year math and that all went great. And my sophomore year I ended up in a class called Basic Algebra One that was not basic and was not any algebra that I knew anything about. And it turned out that half of that class had been the US national math team. And they had all competed internationally and they knew stuff I didn't. And I was at the time taking introductory economics, which I really liked because it combined history and politics and math and economics. And so I moved my major into economics and had a great experience as an economics major undergrad. I was still going to go to law school.”
2025-05-30 · Masters in Business · Richmond Federal Reserve President and CEO Tom Barkin · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source